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Thanks for visiting Consumerist.com. As of October 2017, Consumerist is no longer producing new content, but feel free to browse through our archives. Here you can find 12 years worth of articles on everything from how to avoid dodgy scams to writing an effective complaint letter. Check out some of our greatest hits below, explore the categories listed on the left-hand side of the page, or head to CR.org for ratings, reviews, and consumer news.

Kole McRae is a writer in Toronto who says he worked for two days as a door-to-door salesman for an unnamed company. The sales pitch involved asking people who answered the door whether they were happy with their current service, so I’m guessing the company sold something something related to phone, cable, or utilities. [More]

Salesmen for Pinnacle Security have reportedly been going through Wichita neighborhoods and telling customers of CastleRock Security that the company has gone out of business. “These imposters then attempt to remove the CastleRock security equipment and attempt to obtain a blank, voided check so that they can start billing withdrawals from the customers’ checking accounts.”

A couple of years ago, the New York Times did a piece on the poor treatment of teens hired to travel the country and sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door, but they’re not the only ones getting the raw end of the deal.

Don’t panic if a stranger shows up at your door sometime in the next few months asking how many people live in your home. They work for the Census Bureau, not IDT, and they’re starting their decennial door-knocking party to figure out how big a slice of the federal government’s annual $300 billion pork pie your community deserves.

Apparently, Chicagoland is under siege by door-to-door salespeople from “the gas company” who want to “see your gas bill.” My father, Edgar, demonstrates his technique for tossing them out of the house.

Yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that the police were looking for two men who were posing as Comcast employees as a ruse to steal social security numbers. The men were driving an unmarked car, wandering around a neighborhood knocking on doors and telling residents they needed to fix some wiring issues. One resident refused, claiming that she didn’t have an appointment. She then saw the employees start knocking on other doors and, finding it unlikely that her entire neighborhood could have “wiring issues,” called the police.

Yesterday, we told you about a outsourced door-to-door salesman who was soliciting for Verizon when he was caught masturbating while watching a woman work in her garden. He’s been charged with two counts of “lewdness, resisting arrest and criminal trespassing,” and now Verizon tells us that they’ve suspended all door-to-door marketing in Delaware until they’re done investigating the incident.

We’re not big fans of door-to-door marketing, and today we bring you another example of why we feel this way. According to the News-Journal, an employee of a marketing firm contracted by Verizon has been arrested and charged with two counts of “lewdness, resisting arrest and criminal trespassing,” after a man in a Verizon t-shirt was spotted “masturbating while watching a woman work in her garden.”

Boy, if there’s one thing that really makes us happy its being pestered by door-to-door salesmen. We just love it! Often, we are sitting around with nothing to do and no one to talk to and then surprise! Oh, happy day! An AT&T salesman wants to talk us about their many fine products!